It's funny how time flies. Today, in 2025, I've taken a moment to go back to that start of the millennium, 2001, and reread an article I wrote for the Association for the Progress of Management (APD) titled "Predictions for a Decade". Back then, looking to the future was an exercise in imagination and analysis of emerging trends. Today, it's a fascinating retrospective.

Reviewing those pages, I can't help but feel a mix of amazement and, I confess, a touch of humility. It's remarkable how some of the visions I proposed then have surprisingly aligned with the reality we live in today.

I remember reflecting on:

• Ubiquitous connectivity and its effects on work: The idea of a "permanently connected" workforce, with flexible hours and the end of morning traffic jams, seemed futuristic. Today, remote work and flexibility are pillars of many organizations.
• The metamorphosis of commerce: We anticipated the "explosion" of B2C e-commerce, where physical stores would transform into mere "showrooms" and the final purchase would be made online. This is the omnichannel model that defines our consumption.
• The fusion of television and the Internet: The vision of an "explosion of high-quality multimedia content in audio and video" with interactivity has given way to a universe of streaming platforms that have radically transformed how we consume entertainment.
• Personalized marketing: The shift from "market share" to "customer share," a 1:1 dialogue with each customer to build loyalty, is the essence of today's digital marketing, where personalization is key.
• The role of Artificial Intelligence: Even then, we sensed the potential of AI as the "perfect manager's assistant," a reality that we now see enhanced by generative AI tools in every corner of the professional sphere.

Of course, not everything could be exact; the future always holds surprises, and the speed of some transformations surpassed all expectations. Predictions are, after all, an attempt to chart paths in the fog. But the central reflection that "information technologies are not the future, they are the present" remains, perhaps, the most powerful and relevant.

I invite you to read the full article, as it was published in 2001, so you can form your own opinion and, perhaps, discover more connections to our present. You can find the transcript here:

MANAGEMENT AND PROGRESS: Predictions for a Decade

Association for the Progress of Management - No. 177

Sponsored by: ALCATEL - ARCHITECTS OF AN INTERNET WORLD

Guzmán Salvador CEO, Evoluciona

The Challenge of Information Accessibility

I must admit that I have always felt a special motivation for making predictions. Looking to the future with imagination allows us to face our journey through the present with greater firmness. What I had never done, I confess, is share my reflections with so many and such distinguished readers. In this humble article, I will try to describe some ideas about what awaits us in the next decade. I beg you not to store these words in a memory chest, to be opened, say, in the year 2010, for the sole purpose of laughing at my expense. It would be too cruel an exercise. As you and I know, it is most likely that much of what I am about to tell you will not happen. Do not hold it against me; it is not my intention to deceive. I only intend to give you one more point of view to help you understand our strange and complex present.

When I look back, only ten or fifteen years, I feel terribly fortunate. Possibly never in the short history of humankind have so many and such important things happened in such a short period of time. Definitive advances in medical and pharmaceutical research, the mass adoption of mobile telephony, the discovery of the human genome, the development of telecommunications, advances in space exploration... Possibly all these advances, studied from a socioeconomic perspective, have a common link: they have been possible thanks to the constant evolution of microelectronics and information technologies. Computer equipment that is more powerful, smaller, and easier to use every day has caused the commercial explosion of a sector that, in its evolution, has pulled all the others along with it. Just five years ago, there were hardly any companies that had email, and even fewer that accessed web services. Today, these tools are practically indispensable for any company in any sector.

Thus, little by little, they are displacing, or at least reducing, the use of communication systems as classic as the telephone and the fax.

But using technology is no longer a differentiating factor. It is not in question. What makes and will make even more of a difference in the future is the correct use of technology.

A Day in the Next Decade

If the present is stimulating, the future we are approaching at breakneck speed seems tremendously exciting. As an example, allow me to describe a typical day in the life of a company manager at the end of the next decade.

I wake up in the morning listening to the radio as I have it configured for Mondays: only positive economic news for my portfolio, from station A (I don't want to start on the wrong foot at this hour), general headlines from station B, the world football league standings, details about my favorite team, and, as a special suggestion, the computer suggests a simultaneous translation of the debate currently taking place in Tokyo on the international treaty for telecommunications liberalization. I accept. The computer knows that, as the head of a group of textile manufacturing companies with interests in China, this information is of interest to me. I leave the house for the garage, and a soft, metallic voice bids me farewell. I know I can leave the house in its hands.

The car, while recharging its batteries, downloaded all the maps and street guides of the peninsula from the Net this morning (as it does daily). Today, I don't really feel like driving, so I decide to hand control over to the computer and order it to make a stop along the way. At the usual cafeteria.

Entering the office parking lot, I already know all the business figures from the past weekend. Recent staff conversions have left the building quite empty, which the company has taken advantage of to rent out two of the floors. As in many offices in the city, most employees have enjoyed flexible hours for some time, as they are permanently connected, and variable performance-based bonuses have taken on greater importance than fixed salaries (and the government adopted a clever incentive plan for companies that allowed it). Thanks to all this, the daily morning traffic jams are a thing of the past.

Once in my office, I ask the computer, in plain natural language, to dictate a detailed report of all the decisions and operations that occurred in my absence. In this cybernetic status, we review important movements and I note a couple of decisions that require my approval. Thanks to the computer's logic and the integration and normalization of data with our clients and suppliers, I can start another week of my work thinking about the good of my Company.

At midday, and after having a couple of group meetings with my team of advisors (some members live and others via telepresence), I head out for my morning walk in the park. In less than fifteen minutes, I have received five requests for conferences. Thanks to the implementation of telepresence in the company, we have saved more than 40 million Euros in travel and telephony this year. Of the five requests, I have only accepted one: the director of the Korea office (whom I still don't have the pleasure of knowing in person) informs me that he has negotiated a large production for that year with the government. From the same device I am using to talk to him, I access our customer database and verify that the demand for that factory will be covered (this would not be possible without the customer knowledge that technology has provided us). We give the start order to the Asian factory, and the computer assures us it will release any potential excess stock in real-time on a virtual market on the Net.

After a long six-hour stay at the head office, I head to the golf course where my friends from the club will be waiting for me. I'm there until eight in the evening. During this whole time, I remain connected, receiving messages and setting up conferences. The same happens to my colleagues. The merging of personal and professional life has been one of the worst effects of total connectivity. Still, it's easy to get used to, although old-school managers have serious difficulties maintaining the concentration needed to make decisions at any time of day. By the way, my back ached all day, until my private doctor, through my mobile communication terminal and from the 16th hole, reminded me that the results of my last check-up had been extraordinary, unbecoming of my age. Nothing more encouraging to sign one of my best and most envied scorecards of the season.

Back home. I throw myself on the couch and think for a moment: what do I feel like watching today? Today I don't feel like thinking. I'm too tired. The computer knows perfectly well what I don't like, so I ask it to put on anything. After several attempts, I settle on a movie that has just been released in theaters. It's a bit more expensive to watch it at home, but it has its advantages.

In an action scene, a sports car catches my eye. I pause the movie and zoom in with a gentle touch. A Chrysler 800M. I ask for more information. They recognize me as the owner of a competing brand. I reject their succulent offer and continue watching the film. Maybe another day. I'm too tired today.

Fiction or reality? This short story of an executive's life in the year 2010 may be surprising in some aspects. But we must recognize that technology, and the Internet in particular, will necessitate a new approach to managing companies. A new approach and new concepts that are already part of our future present and which I will analyze below.

The fusion of telecommunication systems with computing is irremediably leading us towards a world where information flows in all directions and senses.

The accessibility of information will be one of the main challenges that companies will face in the next decade. Information, in itself, no longer means power. Power, and consequently, competitive value, now revolves around the accessibility, organization, and quality of the information.

The Internet will represent for organizations the infrastructure on which they will articulate all their strategies, processes, and methods.

While this is happening, we could highlight an unusual fact: the traditional value chain is inverted towards the consumer's side. It will be the consumer who requests personalized services. And they will do so in a capricious manner (they have the power of information control). As we will see, the leading companies of the next decade will be those that base their growth flexibly, have robust information systems, and manage their information and processes with a high degree of normalization, so that they can make the most of alliances.

E-commerce

Who said that business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce has been a failure? In the coming years, we will undoubtedly witness the take-off of commercial transactions between consumers and retailers via the Internet. Governments will create an international body with a presence in all countries that will ensure the security and confidentiality of personal information. Department stores will remain in physical form, but their use as mere showrooms and product testers will become widespread.

After seeing or trying the product in the store, we will access the best prices, guarantees, services, and shipping times available on the Net and we will buy with our personal assistant in the same natural way that we hand over a credit card to a clerk today. The store will possibly take a margin on the transaction.

The Internet will become the main information center for purchase decisions for most consumer products.

For this B2C market to be possible, it will first be necessary for companies to develop their operational excellence (complete computerization of their business operations through ERP-type systems) and, subsequently, to venture into the field of standardizing and normalizing their data and processes in the value chain, with their customers and suppliers. This automation of processes will generate flexible and very dynamic business structures, which will enable the response to consumer requests.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence was a computer science specialty with a great boom in the 70s and 80s. With the mass production of printed circuits and programmable miniaturized controllers in industrial machines and transport vehicles, the development of specialized software that makes decisions as an expert would (for this reason this type of software is known as expert systems) developed rapidly.

The emergence of the Internet as a large knowledge base, and more technically, the deployment of standard definition languages like XML, will make it possible for connected computers, through the development of appropriate business logic, to have the necessary instruments to become the most perfect assistants for the manager of the new decade.

We often think of the Internet as that website we connect to from a computer connected to the office's local network or our home's telephone line.

When you talk to a marketing professional about the Net, the conversation automatically turns to topics such as the unreliability of the Net as an advertising medium, the difficulty of measuring the return on investment, or the dubious ability of banners to recall the advertised brands. The marketing laws that prevail in today's companies have remained stable for many years. The time for their renewal has come. One of the most important milestones that will occur in the next decade will be the union of television and the Internet. Most media outlets will compete to be chosen as the gateway to billions of consumers worldwide. The general public's access to broadband will cause an explosion of multimedia content of superior quality in audio and video to the television we know today, following the principles of interactivity of the current web. The consumer will have the possibility to buy products from home that have not yet been manufactured. The optimization of resources and productions, cost adjustments, etc., will be one of the main benefits for the industry and the consumer.

Advertising agencies and marketing departments will see their budgets shift from a market share position (acquiring customers in a quantitative mode) to a much more complex customer share one (establishing a 1:1 dialogue with each customer to build loyalty and expand our offer). To do this, they will have to become familiar with technology. It is possible that many current agencies will not survive and that the trend in companies will be to direct part of the marketing budgets towards the new e-business units.

Information technologies are not the future, they are the present. New and interesting opportunities will be offered to us. It is our responsibility as managers to be prepared and to know how to take advantage of them. Much talent and good luck for the next decade.

I hope you enjoy sharing this reflection on your blog. I would love to read the comments it generates!